Our first event and a few lessons of life in Beijing.

We scored some tickets women's basketball, China vs Spain. China is up
37 to 24. Tonight we have Badminton which should be incredible.

The trip to the basketball game was about two hours, all within the
city limits of Beijing. After taking the Metro (impecibly clean, air
conditioned, and probably the best way to travel) to get the tickets
at another hotel* we tried a taxi to the basketball venue as our time
was short. Lesson learned, usually best to use metro IF there is a
decent route. On the west side of Beijing the metro does not connect
north to south so we experimenting with bus vs taxi. The overall
lesson: the city is huge with traffic that rivals (exceeds) LA and
Manhattan and requires plenty of lead times.

Food: biggest challenge is the food in venues, it's, well, horrible.
Literally the choices are a muffin, weird small hot dog, and bread.
And popcorn. We're learning that all the venues might have the same
options. No food allowed in.

Security: really interesting to experience how varied the security is.
Frankly, at opening ceremonies we brought in food and water without
hassle. Then, today at the basketball venue we had to check everything
(lotion, gum, food, empty Camelbak, medicines). The Camelbak is
unexplainable to every checkin volunteer. We had to go through
security three times, finally I just started telling which things were
prohibitted. Unfortunately there was no pre-warning about lotion,
mede, etc. One theory we have is that security will be tightest here
at baskbetball venue due to NBA players.